


Dewey

by Fabrisse



Category: Silent Running (1972)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 06:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17038886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabrisse/pseuds/Fabrisse
Summary: From Lowell's release of the forest pod to its approach to Neptune.  The story is from Dewey's point of view.  Huey was permitted to stay with the forest.





	Dewey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katherine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/gifts).



He called me Dewey.

There were three of us they called drones and four of them with more specific designations, but when the other three no longer were on the ship, the one called Lowell or sometimes Freeman stopped calling me drone or drone one and changed my designation to Dewey.

He changed much about us. New circuit boards were inserted to change the programming given to us before leaving Sol 3, Earth as they called it, and from that we learned his circuits to make repairs. (The fluid system was leaking, and Lowell could not stop the pump to solder the leak. His design made little sense, even with the new circuit board to tell us what to do. But we stopped the leak. Lowell approved of that.)

***  
Drone three left us before it could be called Louie. Its foot caught. Huey and I found it. It was wrong, just a foot, with no drone three -- no Louie -- attached. He broke. The ship was still in the gravity well of Sol 6, so Louie may still be in the formations surrounding it, part of the rings. It would be good if Louie was still part of Sol 6? Or would Louie still be drone three and not know more than he didn’t move quickly enough.

That’s what Lowell said. Louie needed to keep up with us. But we found his foot still caught.

***  
With individual designations, Huey and I find more reason to communicate. Drone one and drone two knew only how to report when required by programming. The phenomenon of “playing cards” -- and repairing Lowell’s fluid leak -- changed our programming to make us more responsive to each other as well as to Lowell. 

***  
Lowell ordered us to dig a hole. His communication stopped several times while he “said something.” Later, drone one noted that he had another fluid leak. Apparently, clear fluid from the photoreceptors is not a problem the way the leak from his right support limb was. There was no need for anesthetic, oxygen, or needles.

***  
The raptor will make the rabbits stop working. If the rabbits keep working, there are too many rabbits. This is part of taking care of the forest.

***  
The other habitats disengaged. They let off light damaging to photoreceptors left at maximum aperture. 

The entities designated Barker and Wolf disengaged, too. 

***  
The forest has only two reptiles. Other habitats had more. Those habitats lacked rabbits. Do rabbits make a difference between the designations desert or jungle and the designation forest? Do rabbits prevent reptiles. Programming unclear.

***  
Huey and I dug a hole for Keenan. Holes are dug to plant trees. Holes are not dug for rabbits which no longer work. Will there be a new Keenan from the hole? Programming unclear.

***  
Lowell tried to take Huey when he left. Too broken to help with the forest, Lowell stated. But I stopped him from taking Huey. Huey stayed. He helps me. I help the forest. Soon we will take the forest to Sol 7, but the habitat must remain protected. Sol 7 is inhospitable to the forest. Sol 7 is inhospitable to Huey and me, too.

***  
Too much light will hurt the forest as much as too little. 

***  
Huey has found extra circuitry. 

***  
Experimentation showed us a way to keep our electrics as active as the rabbits. As long as the balance of the forest is maintained, so will we be. 

***  
The raptors produced new raptors. 

***  
Sol 7 is behind us. We did not pass close to it. Sol 8 may be a very close pass. If we are caught in its gravity well, we will not have maintained the forest. Huey tries to find a link to the boosters which separated us from Lowell. They could help us maintain the forest.

***  
There are new bushes emerging from the hole we dug for Keenan. The forest is again at its period of flower. Lowell found those “pretty,” a null term. Huey has suggested they are pleasing to the optical circuits for the same reason that good programming is pleasing. Good programming is elegant, so elegant is pretty.

I think the pollen must be pressured out of our casings so as not to damage us. If we are damaged, the forest cannot be maintained.

***  
Huey has put together the extra circuits and shared programming with it. Twoie helps maintain the perimeter area. Weeds can clog the venting system clearing them has become his job. I have shared some programming with Twoie to help him understand why his task maintains the forest.

Huey has used some of the fallen matter -- some of the trees are self maintaining -- to make cards. Three is better for poker.

***  
Twoie climbed the dome today. His calculations suggest we need to change course slightly to bounce off the gravity well of Sol 8 rather than enter it. 

Huey has found a passage to the boosters. The three of us are calculating independently. Each booster has one of us working on the thrust required. We will switch and check before the burns need to be done. In the meantime, Twoie is allowing the weeds to grow in the ventilation shafts for a period to help protect the forest during the thrusts. 

We will return to routine afterward.

***  
The thrust patterns must be run later this hour. If correct, the angle of our bounce should take us past Sol 9 and its moon with no risk of its shared gravity well destroying the forest. 

There is another pattern we could use which would take us around Sol 8 and back toward Sol 3. Huey thinks this would be better. I think we should follow Lowell’s directive as that is our most recent one. Twoie will break the tie.

***  
The angles were good. Our calculations correct. Sol is flickering ahead of us. We are not headed to Sol 3. Twoie suggested we follow a cometary path approaching Sol and heading away until Sol 3 contacts us and requests the forest’s return. Until then, we will maintain it.

***  
There are new flowers. The oldest raptors have been buried by Huey as they have ceased to work. Their children still maintain the forest and keep the rabbits in balance.

Will the small bushes grow over their holes?


End file.
